Stories Before Sept 2016

Yesterday, Lester Holt anchored NBC Nightly News just like he has been doing for months, but this time it was different.

Holt's name was included into the title of the show and it was his first night anchoring has the now official anchor of the broadcast.

Yesterday, Holt talked about the Brian Williams scandal that helped him land his new job as NBC News Mani Anchor.

But, Holt admits he kept his head down and stayed out of the mix during the whole ordeal.

“The fact of the matter is that I wasn’t being told anything about (Williams),” Holt told the Daily News Monday, breaking his silence about the scandal. “For lack of a better term, there was a ‘firewall’ between me and all that. I accepted that my role was to fill in for six months, and there were never any discussions (with NBC executives) about where or what this all might lead to — so I tried to keep my head down.”

Holt said his biggest source for news about the Williams scandal were reports from sources outside of NBC News. “There were times that I tried not to read anything that was written about this whole situation, so of course I read everything. At some point I didn't know what to believe, but ultimately it kept coming back to keeping my head focused on the broadcast,” he says.

Holt says that he and Brian Williams exchanged some emails during Williams’ suspension, but they spoke last Thursday for the first time since the scandal.

Holt describes the conversation as “personal,” so he declined to give the details, but he did reveal that he and Williams are on solid ground as colleagues.

“It was a conversation that we both had been craving but didn't know how to initiate,” Holt says. “The bottom line is that we expressed our friendship to each other. We acknowledged that while some might see this as awkward, nothing that has transpired was between the two of us. We are friends and the best way to characterize it is that Brian and I are good.”